Madison County Drivers Worry About Bridge

Piney Woods Road in Madison County is your basic two lane. It’s a bit rough, but certainly busy. Drivers who use the road would like it re-paved, but that’s not the main thing that concerns them. “It’s bumpy and it needs to be paved over and replaced. It’s not wide enough,” says Robert Buck.

He’s talking about the old bridge on Piney Woods. The concrete supports appear stable enough, but the surface of the bridge is rough, ranging through the original concrete to multiple layers of asphalt, that haven’t been smooth in a long time.

The old bridge was built for vehicles from another time, and quite frankly, it’s a bit narrow. “Sometimes you gotta back up, or you have to pull off the side of the road, and it’s kind of crazy to do that because of the ditches,” says Buck. Ditches do line Piney Woods, and the roads shoulder is pretty much the beginning of the ditch bank. “I’ve actually had an incident where I almost ran off the road trying to let someone in a big truck go by,” says Erica Woods.

That’s the main concern for drivers who use the road and bridge regularly. When a big truck approaches from the other direction, the bridge isn’t wide enough to handle both vehicles. “It needs to be replaced, definitely replaced”, says Erica Woods.

At the very least it needs the once over by Madison County traffic engineers. We’re taking action and making sure they understand the concerns of drivers who use the busy two lane, and this old bridge.